


Yourself or Someone Like You

by hobie



Category: Selfie (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drama & Romance, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 12:30:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3569789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobie/pseuds/hobie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regarding Henry: he suffers a major injury at a skate park and suffers retrograde amnesia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yourself or Someone Like You

Eliza Dooley risked several tickets as she drove her Fiat like a madwoman through the busy LA streets headed for California Hospital Medical Center. She didn’t care. After receiving a call from Charlie that Henry had been hurt, she had dropped everything. After all, he had been there for her when she had fallen down a manhole. She rushed towards the Critical Care wing and saw Charlie outside in the waiting room.

“What happened?” she asked, afraid because of the forlorn look on the tall man’s face.

“Henry got hurt skateboarding. “

“Again?” Eliza frowned. “He just had his cast taken off last week.”

“It’s worse,” Charlie said somberly. Somehow he lost his helmet then fell and hit his head.”

“I need to see him,” she insisted.

She went into the unit and stopped at the main desk. “I’m here for Henry Higgs.”

The clerk looked up at her. “Are you family, because only immediate family members can see him.”

“I’m his fiancée,” the ginger lied. Nothing was going to stop her from seeing him, rules be damned.

The clerk led her to a room. She gasped when she saw him hooked up to a breathing machine with a tube down his throat. Standing at his bedside were an Indian doctor and a Greek nurse.

“OMG,” the redhead rushed to Henry’s bed and could not believe what she saw.

“Are you his girlfriend?” the doctor asked. “I’m Dr Kumar Patel.”

“Yes, I’m Eliza. Eliza Dooley,” she shook his hand nervously. “What happened?”

“We’ve had to place Henry in a medically induced coma. He just underwent neurosurgery. “

“What?” she shouted in disbelief. “Why, what happened? “

“TBI resulting in brain tissue injury. We had to stop a AVM, hence the surgery,” explained Dr Patel.

“In English please,” the redhead insisted.

“Henry suffered a traumatic brain injury with some arterial problems. We had to operate and now he’s in a medically induced coma for his own protection,” Dr Patel tried his best to put his condition in terms she could understand.

“We have to make sure there is no brain swelling. We don’t want to risk permanent damage,” the nurse warned.

“Is he going to be okay?” she asked worriedly.

“We hope so,” was Dr Patel’s only reply.

She stared at him. Just yesterday, they had shared laughter, shared their millionth awesome moment together and now this. Sitting down in a chair by his bed, she touched his forehead with her hand.

“Henry?” she whispered. “It’s me Eliza.”

His sleeping face registered nothing at her voice.

“I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can, just blink or something?”

She remembered the time she had pulled that line on him before and as bad as things had been then, this was much worse.

“When you wake up, I am going to beat your ass for doing this to me,” she told him as tears streamed down her face.

A week later, they took Henry off his coma then performed a DC (Decompessive Crainiectomy). A few days after that, he was deemed medically stable but since they had removed a small portion of his skull, he had to wear a helmet to prevent further injury. Henry’s mother and father were there as were Saperstein, Charlie, Larry, and Eliza.

“Regarding Henry, he is medically stable for now,” Dr Patel told them in the waiting room. “He will be transferred to one of the best rehab hospitals in the county. Right now he can move, but cannot walk. He will be undergoing intense rehab. Also I’m afraid he has retrograde amnesia.”

They all took the news pretty well considering they had feared for his very life the past few weeks. His parents went to see him first while the others waited.

“I’ve spoken to Raj. Henry will be on short term disability,” Saperstein told them. “Even if he never comes back, I will see to it he get long term disability with full healthcare benefits.”

“I’m sorry I’ve missed so much work, sir,” Eliza apologized.

“It’s not a problem. You’re probably the reason why he’s improved so much.”

“I don’t know,” she fretted. “I should never have encouraged him to try skateboarding in the first place.”

Several minutes later, Henry’s parents came out. “He wants to see you,” his mother Jenny told her. Eliza afforded her a kind smile. The woman looked great for her age.

“Henry,” Eliza entered his room and saw his eyes open. She tried to wipe at the tears.

“Hey,” he smiled back. He looked goofy in that helmet, but seeing him conscious was more than she could have hoped for.

“How are you?” she asked tentatively.

He beheld her as if seeing her for the first time. “You’re beautiful,” he breathed.

“What?” she whispered.

“My mom told me about you,” he smiled. “That you’re my fiancée and that you’ve been here almost every day since the accident.”

She swallowed hard, but realized she could not bring herself to suddenly say that was untrue.

“Do you remember me?” she asked timidly.

His smile faded. “Sadly, no. Doctor Patel told me I have amnesia.”

“Yeah, I googled your type. It’s more short term, so that’s probably why you remember your parents than me.”

“I want you to help me remember us,” he requested.

“Okay,” she smiled despite her sadness at seeing him like this. After taking out her phone, she showed her their favorite photo of each other, the selfie with the white horse at Saperstein’s Ranch.

“I can horseback ride?” he asked. “I remember as a boy refusing a pony ride at my own birthday party!”

“You spent sixteen grand learning how to ride so you could impress our boss,” she told him.

“We met at work?” he beamed. “Can you tell me the story?”

“Do you have a few hours?”

“I couldn’t go anywhere if I wanted,” he chuckled

Eliza returned that night to her apartment an emotional mess. Freddy was waiting for her.

“I missed you,” he told her, trying to steal a kiss.

“Freddy,” she sighed. “Not tonight.”

“Not tonight?” he pleaded. “I haven’t seen you in two weeks.”

“In case you didn’t know Henry needs me,” she glared at him.

“Your boyfriend needs you too sometimes,” he shot back angrily.

“You’re sleeping on the couch tonight!” the redhead informed him.

Eliza visited him the next day at the rehab hospital.

“I know you’ve lost a lot of weight because you haven’t eaten much recently,” she told him. “So I stopped by the deli and got you a grilled chicken salad.”

“Darn, and I was craving an In-N-Out cheeseburger,” he joked.

“I could go pick one up,” she offered.

“A Salad is fine,” he assured her.

Her eyes caught sight of a large vase containing a dozen red roses. “Who got you flowers?”

“Oh those,” he smiled at her warmly. “They’re not mine. They’re for you.”

She reached over and took the little card. It simply read: To My Fair Lady, love Henry

“I’ve never gotten roses,” she breathed.

“What?” he asked incredulously.

“I haven’t,” Eliza said sadly, touched at his romantic gesture.

“What kind of guy was I not to give you flowers?” he asked her.

“Henry, please don’t worry about me. We need to focus on your rehab. I want you to walk again,” she insisted.

“I want that too,” he confessed. “ But you’ve been here for me all this time. I want to remember you and us.”

“You will,” she took his hand in hers.

“Maybe it would help if you went to my place and got my journal and laptop,” he requested.

Eliza sat down on Charmonique’s couch, distraught beyond measure.

“I am a horrible person,” she confessed.

“You? Nonsense. Henry’s lucky to have a friend like you.”

“I don’t deserve him,” she insisted.

“What makes you say that? I visited him too and his family and caregivers all say you’re to thank for his progress.”

“He thinks I’m his fiancée because I told them I was so I could see him,” she blurted. “And now he’s totes in love with me.”

“He was totally in love with you before,” countered the sassy receptionist.

“I don’t know what to do,” she fretted. “It’s going to hurt him bad once he finds out we’re not engaged.”

“Eliza,”Charmonique sighed. “The truth will set you free.”

The next day, Eliza brought Henry’s journal and laptop. She saw him sitting up in bed looking at a big cake on his nightstand.

“Eliza,” he grinned at her. “A couple of ladies from your building dropped this off, but I didn’t want to try and until you got here.”

She set his belongings down on the bed.

“Henry, you’ll probably find out a lot of things about yourself about us, from your journal.” She began, voice quivering.

“I hope my proposal was not some scary flash mob thing,” he smirked.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered then started to run out of the room.

“Eliza!” he called after her and lunged out of bed, trying to get up. He fell on the floor hard and lay there helpless.

She turned in the doorway and saw his predicament and ran back to him. “Henry!”

“Don’t go,” he stared at the hard floor, trying to pick himself up.

“Henry,” she grabbed his arm, trying to help him.

A nurse and a CNA entered the room. “Are you alright?”

“Sorry, fell outta bed,” he smiled sheepishly at them.

They looked at each other, but with Eliza’s help got him back into bed.

After a few tense minutes, she took a seat at his bedside.

“Don’t scare me like that,” she pleaded.

“Why did you get up to leave?”

“What I’m doing is not fair to you. You’re trying to remember things and I’m not helping you.”

“Eliza,” he sighed. “I wish this never happened and I want to remember you and us.”

“I’m not your fiancée,” she whispered, her heart breaking.

“What?”

“We’re just friends in real life. Good friends. I told the staff that story so I could get in to see you,” she confessed. "Besides, you didn't see a ring on my finger."

“Just friends,” he repeated. He glanced at her hand and wondered why he hadn't bothered to look before. The look of disappointment on his face said it all.

“Henry, that doesn’t mean I don’t love, that I didn’t love you…”

He stared at the journal that she had brought him.

“That will probably tell you everything about us, what you really thought about me and how you felt about me,” she told him.

“Did something happen between us?” he asked, mind racing with dread.

“Yes. But,…”

“But what?”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is you getting better and if you never want me in your life for lying to you like this…”

“Eliza, tell me what happened? Did I ever hurt you?”

Even after all this time, she had never gotten over the night of the last karaoke party.

“Yes you did.”

He looked away.

“Just read what you wrote, maybe it will help you remember things,” she ventured.

“I don’t want you to leave,” he told her. “Even if there was bad things between us and even though we’re not engaged, I don’t want things to fall apart between us.”

“What do you want me to do? I feel awful about lying to you, the way you’ve looked at me..” tears streamed down her face.

“Come on, let’s just read my journal together then we’ll deal with our problems after,” he afforded her a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> This was an entry in the save selfie fanfic contest. Guess it was a major fail, but thanks to those who voted for me.


End file.
